Safety Testing of Computerized Provider Order Entry Systems

In recent years an increasing number of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems have been developed. CPOE is widely regarded as a technology for reducing hospital medication errors. However, they may introduce specific safety hazards that should be identified and prevented. Despite this fact, these systems, based on large dynamic data structures, are poorly studied from the safety point of view. The paper presents a method for safety testing of CPOE systems. The method can complement the test plan used for providing evidence for the reliability of software, adding a specific part devoted to safety. It provides engineering guidance taking advantage from the typical software architecture of CPOE, usually based on a central database and a set of software components acting on the database. The method is based on the following steps: identification of critical events and related data structures; selection of functions that write, compute or output the values of the data structures;...